


Sweet—You forgot—but I remembered

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Christmas, F/M, Gen, Pets, gift shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 03:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8952274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: When the shelves are bare, the thoughtful gift-giver must become creative.





	

“McBurney, excuse me, Captain McBurney can’t have liked this,” Jed said, peering into the basket. How much care she had taken, the blue silk ribbons suspiciously like the color of her ill-fated ball gown, the wadding remarkably like every lady’s petticoat he’d ever glimpsed…and it would be for nothing, a gift he couldn’t accept.

“Oh, no, he was actually quite enthusiastic about the prospect. I wasn’t going to risk his disapprobation about something so vital,” she said calmly, a satisfied, nearly smug smile on her pretty face. He couldn’t resist and reached a hand forward, fondled the curve of the crown, the puppy’s silky ears.

“I suppose I shall have to make a bed for him… _her_ in my room,” he said questioningly, seeing Mary nod when he changed his assumption. “She doesn’t seem suited to a crate outdoors.” The spaniel was fine-boned and though she was well-groomed, she was small and would shiver through the dank Virginia night.

“No, sir. I already done that. Nurse Mary, she asked me to, so it’s all done,” Isaac piped proudly. Jed knew Mary had been feeding him as much as possible but it hardly seemed to take; he was as scrawny as ever though his eyes were brighter and his clothing better mended. 

“Did Nurse Mary ask you anything else, Isaac?” 

“Well, she asked me to find you the dog in the first place, sir. Ain’t likely a lady’s got time to run the streets, looking for strays,” the boy replied. “I’m good at finding things, she says I’m her best errand boy, a, a deputy of the hospital. So, I asked ‘bout nigh everyone in Alexandria about any puppies worth fetchin’ up and I found you this here girl. Family couldn’t feed her, they was glad I took her.”

He imagined it, who would have handed him the puppy, another house-boy or maybe the cook, surely not any of the family proper—and also how he must have held the dog in his arms, two orphans, both under Mary’s watchful eye.

“We hadn’t enough miserable creatures to care for?” he said quietly, the boy absorbed with petting the puppy, murmuring the nonsense an animal knew to be caring.

“A boy needs a dog, Jed, and what is a man but a boy over-grown?” she said neatly. She hadn’t missed how gentle his hand had been stroking the dog’s soft brown fur or the story he’d told at dinner, a fortnight ago or more, about his father’s spaniel Cicero and how they’d played on the shore for hours, an indulgent reminiscence that had been spoken and he’d thought, wrongly, forgotten.

“But the boy, he doesn’t need her more?” he asked, almost thinking they should converse in German to preserve the confidence, save that Isaac paid them no mind, so taken was he with the dog.

“He hasn’t a place to keep her or the means to do so, this is better. Let him be the savior for once and the welcome visitor,” she replied.

“Well, I suppose I should name her at least, if I needn’t ask the chief for permission and you’ve already seen to her accommodations,” he said more jocularly, indicating Isaac might pay attention now to the conversation.

“Oh, she’s already got a name, Tippet she’s called, so that’s done. Sir,” Isaac volunteered.

“Is there anything I need to do for, for Tippet, then?” he said, taken aback.

“Only love her,” Mary said softly. “She’s in great need of that. Isaac, won’t you go check with Steward about whether he’s enough dried apples? For if he hasn’t, I’ll need you to try and fetch some directly for the applesauce cake I mean to make the men for their supper.”

“Yes’m,” the boy said, hurrying from the room, a last fond glance thrown towards Tippet in her basket.

“It’s, she’s too much, Mary,” Jed said, looking at the drowsy puppy, feeling already the weight of her at his leg, her cool, wet nose in his hand searching for a treat.

“No, I think she’s just what will suit you and you her. You have a way of caring that can be so unexpected, so thoughtful and you need someone who will show you readily how much that means.”

She sounded delightfully full of conviction, that Yankee widow he’d first met, but with so much of her own growing affection for him channeled in these other ways, whatever way she could find that he could accept and Mansion House as well. For who would quibble much with the prospect of a lively, healthy puppy tumbling about the place—certainly not the men or the townsfolk, and if McBurney had agreed, there was no one to say her nay or even make an untoward remark.

“And, truly, I spent an hour at the mercantile and found nothing I could give you for the holiday, the shelves were dreadfully bare and what was left was simply shocking,” she added; he had to peer more closely to see if she was in earnest, her tone suggesting again the thrifty matron but her eyes, oh her eyes! Just then, Tippet barked, the first real noise she’d decided to make and Jed laughed at the interruption, so homely and ephemeral, and Mary at her anticipated but sweet success.

**Author's Note:**

> This is designed to meet the prompt "gift giving" and also to rectify the sad absence of puppies in this fandom; we have two cats, my Plum and BroadwayBaggins's Jo, but not one dog. And a boy needs a dog. In addition, I didn't think Mary would be able to do a lot of shopping in an occupied city during the War.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson. I checked to make sure Tippet's name was appropriate for the 19th century-- it was taken from a non-specific journal from that time period. My other idea was Calpurnia, but it didn't suit.


End file.
